Interval - Definition with Examples

What is an Interval?

How are the two lines different? 

What is the difference between the emergency flashing light of an ambulance and its headlamp?

The headlamps flash continuously. However, the emergency flashing lights flash at intervals.

Let us see what a time interval is:

Suppose you are walking from your home to your school. You walk continuously and reach school in 10 minutes. 

Now, while walking back home, you get tired and decide to sit for 2 minutes. You stop for 2 minutes and then again start walking towards home. So, we say you took a time interval of 2 minutes while walking back home. 

Let us see another example to understand the interval:

When a car moves continuously on the road, it has to stop on approaching a red street light. However, if the street light is green, the car would continue moving without having to stop. 

Time Interval:

The time interval can be defined as the time between two events.

We can show time intervals on a timeline.

Here, the timeline shows intervals of 1 hour.

For example, Sam started playing soccer at 4:30 pm. He finished the game at 6:00 pm. For how long did he play?

We can draw a timeline as:

The interval from 4:30 pm to 5:00 pm is half an hour. Then, from 5:00 pm to 6:00 pm is an hour. So, that makes it an hour and a half. Sam played soccer for one and a half hours.